A first-rate, riveting chronicle of a real-life industrial conflict and tragedy.
Selleck and Thompson recount a 1990s Canadian labor dispute that precipitated violence, sabotage, and the startling deaths of nine gold miners in this nonfiction work.
The trouble started when Royal Oak Mines took control of various gold mines in Canada. One of those was called Giant, located in the mining town of Yellowknife, where Royal Oak CEO Margaret “Peggy” Witte implemented “vigilant supervision” over the employees. This didn’t sit well with Giant’s union, the Canadian Association of Smelter and Allied Workers, especially as Royal Oak essentially dismissed the union’s grievances that had piled up during the mine’s ownership transfer. When the collective agreement expired in March 1992, a strike was inevitable. Negotiations only led to bad blood between the company and the union, and Royal Oak brought in contract workers, or “strikebreakers.” Violent incidents ensued, including a riot, mine break-ins, and the sabotage of equipment. In September of that same year, an explosion took the lives of nine men working in the mine. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who were already policing the labor disputes, suspected the explosion was intentional and searched for a saboteur as the unforgiving strike continued. Selleck and Thompson, who first wrote about this dispute as journalists for local publications, here deliver a scrupulously researched narrative packed with detail. Concise, journalistic prose effortlessly moves readers through a variety of interviews, from union members and strikebreakers to Royal Oak staff and RCMP officers. The narrative covers the months leading up to the strike and the murders, as well as the long-running stalemate between the company and CASAW, followed by years of fallout. The authors include background on the man who ultimately confessed to the murders and cover the interrogation that led to his confession and his eventual trial. Selleck and Thompson further bolster their account with a bevy of high-quality photos of relevant sites and people and provide a welcome focus on each of the nine victims.
A first-rate, riveting chronicle of a real-life industrial conflict and tragedy.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9781038306241
Page Count: 462
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A football star’s bracing account of his battle for racial equality—and how powerful forces arrayed against him.
A principled athlete strives for social justice.
Kaepernick forthrightly details the activism that earned him global renown but cost him his NFL career. In 2016, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback “was filled with disgust” after police shootings of fellow Black men in several American cities. Before a preseason game, he made a spontaneous decision: “It hit me in that moment that I should find a seat” during the national anthem. He did the same at two more games before reporters noticed. Kaepernick will forever be associated with “taking a knee” during the anthem, but he credits Eric Reid—a teammate who agreed with Kaepernick’s message—for suggesting that they kneel together during subsequent anthems. The protest changed everything for Kaepernick. President Trump vilified him. Kaepernick and his wife received death threats. And though he’d taken the 49ers to a Super Bowl, no teams would sign him. He will likely make news for his take on Jay-Z, whose lucrative partnership with the NFL was criticized as an attempt to launder the league’s reputation. Visiting Africa, where Kaepernick learns about “African leaders who willingly sold their own people to the enslavers,” he “couldn’t help but to think about Jay-Z and the NFL.” In opening chapters, Kaepernick recalls suffering traumatic racial abuse as a child. Being in “white spaces”—he was adopted by white parents—placed him “under a microscope every minute of every day.” He isn’t always nuanced, depicting some people he disagrees with as cartoonishly clueless. But his writing about how college and pro teams “lied” to him about injuries underlines his “feeling of being a disposable commodity.” A decade has passed since Kaepernick played in the NFL, but he stays fit in case “a team needing a QB” calls.
A football star’s bracing account of his battle for racial equality—and how powerful forces arrayed against him.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781538777879
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Legacy Lit/Hachette
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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PERSPECTIVES
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